Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
She’d set her bag on one of the tables, and I watched with wary eyes as she fished out more items and donned them. Fingerless gloves. Sound protective earmuffs. Anti-glare shooting glasses. The final item was the shotgun, long and black with one barrel stacked on top of the other, and the white Perazzi logo gleamed along the black tubes.
My shotgun and safety gear were already nearby, as I’d warmed up this morning with my staff, and I hurried now to ready myself. Her practiced efficiency told me I’d made a critical mistake, and when she opened the break-action and loaded two shells into the gun, I grew angry.
“You said you’d never shot before.”
She stared at me through her yellow-tinted glasses, and a smug smile teased the corners of her mouth. “Not this gun. It’s new. It was a birthday present from my parents.”
She closed the break with a loud click, the sound putting a period on the end of her statement, and my stomach knotted. People didn’t give a thirty-five-thousand-dollar shotgun as a present unless they were sure the recipient would know how to use it.
I clenched my jaw. “I’ve already warmed up. Would you like to take a few practice shots?”
“Nope.” She pointed the barrel to the sky and rested the butt of the stock against her hip. “As host, you’re going first.”
My mind was filled with outrage at her command and the way she’d mislead me. But my body ignored it and flooded with a much different emotion—pure, hardwired lust. On a basic level, it was the visceral male response to an attractive woman holding an impressive weapon. But above that, it was the power and confidence she exuded. Her expression screamed she planned to destroy me.
Sophia Alby had played me exactly how I would have manipulated her if our roles had been reversed, and as much as I disliked it, it was impossible not to respect it.
It took me much longer to load my shotgun than it should have. Anxiety made my skilled fingers fumble. When it was done, I walked to the starting station and gazed across the lawn to the trap houses that would launch the orange, four-inch clay discs. The one on the left, the high house, would be the first throw, followed by a single launch from the low house on the right.
I adjusted my stance on the temporary flooring that had been put down over the newly green grass. Spring had come, and the flowers in the gardens were beginning to bloom, and I’d considered ripping them all out and paving over the colorful reminders of the wife who’d planted them there. I forced the distracting thought from my mind. The only thing that mattered now was winning. I wasn’t about to be embarrassed in front of my own people.
The shotgun wasn’t heavy, but tension clung to my fingers as I visualized my shot and stood in the ready position with the gun angled in front of me. I wasn’t allowed to bring it into firing position until the bird had launched. I steadied my breathing and focused on the high house.
“Pull,” I said loudly.
The orange disc streaked through the sky, and I brought the shotgun up against my shoulder, tracking the bird’s path until I understood it, and squeezed the trigger. There was a puff of orange dust as the clay shattered, but I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until the low house launched its target, I pulled the trigger, and a second cloud of orange burst in the sky.
I broke open my shotgun, pulled the empty shell casings out, and reloaded. This time when I called for my shots, they’d launch at the same time, which would cut down on how long I’d have to spot them. Ms. Alby’s watchful gaze was locked onto me, but she said nothing.
I settled into my ready position, let out a steadying breath, and called for my targets.
The high house shot was easy, but my tempo was off on the second. I swung the tip of my gun to the right, trying to keep up, but lagged behind the bird. So, when I squeezed the trigger, there was no burst of orange to follow my gunshot. I glared at the gray, overcast sky, trying to will it into existence.
I’d missed.
It meant I had to exercise my option immediately—essentially a do-over—from this station. If I’d shot a clean set, my twenty-fifth shot was supposed to come from the center of the field at the end. It was intolerable I had missed, not to mention degrading to have to shoot again from the same spot.
I reloaded, readied, and called, and this time I didn’t miss when the single skeet from the low house arced across the field.
As I stepped out of the way, Ms. Alby moved past me to take her position, her determined gaze focused on the field. It was as if I didn’t exist and what I’d shot didn’t matter. This was what I enjoyed most about the sport—you weren’t playing against others so much as yourself.